Our Reception offer

Child initiated learning—learning through play

We have lots of opportunities to play in both our indoor and outdoor classroom. Our adults play alongside us and love to ask us questions, make suggestions and challenge us in different ways.

Phonics sessions

We follow the Essential Letters and Sounds phonics scheme and sessions are delivered every day. The length of the session increases as we progress through the year and includes opportunities to review sounds and ‘harder to read and spell’ words, learn new phonemes, practise to read and write words containing these sounds and to apply this learning to read and write sentences.

Story time

We love stories! A special time is set aside each day to share stories—some of our favourites and some new ones too. We also enjoy saying and singing our favourite rhymes here too!

English/ maths/ topic sessions

Carefully planned whole class learning sessions develop our knowledge and skills in these areas. Adult directed activities (small group or 1:1) help us to practise and refine these skills with the help of the adults in class. Mastering Number sessions are delivered daily to master key number skills. 

Short whole-class carpet sessions

School-wide schemes are used to deliver the following areas discretely throughout the week —

Music / RSHE/ Handwriting / R.E

In addition we complete lots of games and activities aimed at refining and developing our listening, language and communication skills. 

Wonder Wood 

We have a special session focussed on natural play. We put on our wellie boots and visit our very own 'Wonder Wood' where we love building dens, making mud pies in the mud kitchen, bug hunting and creating natural art.

Physical development

Once a week, we have a P.E. lesson where we focus on developing our P.E. skills and on the skills of dressing independently. We have regular access to the wider school grounds where we enjoy riding on the bikes and scooters and accessing the Key Stage 1 'trim trail'. During the Spring term we have access to balance bike sessions where we progress towards riding a 2 wheeled-pedal bike independently. During the first weeks of school children enjoy taking part in 'squiggle while you wiggle' and 'dough disco' sessions to develop their fine and gross motor skills in preparation for writing.

Key skills time

When we are ready, we spend the first few minutes each day practising our key skills such as cutting with scissors, fastening buttons and writing letters.

Snack time

Daily snack time is supervised closely by the EYFS team and we love to sit together and enjoy a drink of milk, some fruit and a healthy snack.